Bharat Electronics Ltd said it was discussing a joint venture with an international major for making radars for select military and civilian purposes.
At the annual news conference on Tuesday, its Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Ashwani Kumar Datt, said the proposal was yet to be finalised. Another venture, with domestic power major BHEL, to make solar photovoltaic wafers, cells and modules, was due to go before the boards of the two companies. BEL had finalised its business plan.
Mr Datt said the current year looked promising and full of challenges for the public sector major; it expects to raise its 2011-12 turnover to Rs 6,200 crore, up almost 12 per cent over the year just ended.
BEL, he said, “expects to garner a minimum of 8 per cent of the large volume of the defence purchase offset orders in the coming three to five years.”
This year, it expects to get orders worth Rs 10,000 crore from Bharat Dynamics Ltd for missile systems and from the Home Ministry for coastal surveillance radars. The order book had grown to Rs 23,600 crore as on April 1.
Defence supplies remained the mainstay, accounting for 80 per cent of the turnover. The aim was to bring it down to 75 per cent and add a few civil products to the portfolio.
BEL makes radars, communication devices, night vision goggles, electronic warfare (EW) systems and Akash missiles for the three Armed Forces, besides electronic voting machines on the civil side.